"Tattoo" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... how he fought with a shark under water in the South Seas, and stabbed it with the knife in his right hand, just as the monster's teeth were closing on his other arm. And to make his story more vivid he bared his great shaggy arm, and showed us an ugly white scar among the tattoo marks above the elbow. Another man told us how he had stood beside Nelson on the "Victory," just as the admiral received his death-wound; and it never occurred to us to wonder how a man of not more than thirty-five ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... Again the tattoo sounded, but as before it produced no results. So Elmer opened the door, which he saw had been fashioned in the rudest way from boards, and ...
— Pathfinder - or, The Missing Tenderfoot • Alan Douglas
... I refrained and kept still. I scarcely breathed; I held the lantern motionless. I tried how steadily I could maintain the ray upon the eye. Meantime the hellish tattoo of the heart increased. It grew quicker and quicker, and louder and louder every instant. The old man's terror must have been extreme! It grew louder, I say, louder every moment! do you mark me well? I have told ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... cage cowered the powerful creature, its broad, snake-like head thrust forward, its tiny golden eyes fixed before it, a curious snarl—like a grin—now and then contorted the immobility of its powerful jaws. The sinewy tail beat a restless tattoo on the floor ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... Girdles of beautifully plaited cocoa-nut fibre round their waists were their only clothing, but some had wreaths of flowers and green leaves round their heads, and most of them wore mother-of-pearl shells, beads, &c., round their necks and in their ears. They do not tattoo, but brand their skins. All five came, and presently three more, and then another; but seeing a large double canoe with perhaps twenty men in her coming close, we stood away. Two of our visitors chose to stay, and we have them on board now: Alsoff, a man of perhaps ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... famed leviathan, scarred like an iceberg, who so long did'st lurk in the Oriental straits of that name, whose spout was oft seen from the palmy beach of Ombay? Was it not so, O New Zealand Jack! thou terror of all cruisers that crossed their wakes in the vicinity of the Tattoo Land? Was it not so, O Morquan! King of Japan, whose lofty jet they say at times assumed the semblance of a snow-white cross against the sky? Was it not so, O Don Miguel! thou Chilian whale, marked like an old tortoise with mystic hieroglyphics upon the ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... credit. A burn is a burn, whether made purposely with a branding iron or by accident in any other way. The scorched flesh puckers and smarts. It hurts every time a leg is moved. It seems as if a thousand needles were playing a tattoo on the exposed surface. Neither is this the worst of the business. To a high-strung animal the roping, throwing, and burning is a tremendous nervous shock. For days after branding a horse will jump and start, quivering with expectant agony, at the ...
— Horses Nine - Stories of Harness and Saddle • Sewell Ford
... neat beard had begun to take on the appearance of a ruptured mohair sofa; Dr. Petrelli, the lean, waspish chemist, was nervously trimming his fingernails with his teeth: and the M.D., Dr. Smathers, had a hangdog expression on his pudgy face and had begun drumming his fingers in a staccato tattoo on his round belly. ...
— Cum Grano Salis • Gordon Randall Garrett
... first screaming of the circling hawks, and about seven o'clock the first drumming of my little friend. His first notes were uncertain and at long intervals, but by and by he warmed up and beat a lively tattoo. As the season advanced he ceased to lodge in his old quarters. I would rap and find nobody at home. Was he out on a lark, I said, the spring fever working in his blood? After a time his drumming grew less frequent, ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... minutes, she said she would not be insulted either, and followed her upstairs. Thereupon Mademoiselle Therese's anger knew no bounds, and finding that Marie had taken refuge beside her aunt in the study, she began to beat a lively tattoo upon the door. ...
— Barbara in Brittany • E. A. Gillie
... doing it injustice: it had been working round me. Approaching the next corner, I would hear the tattoo of its drum. Before I had gone another quarter of a mile it would be in full pursuit of me. I would jump upon a tram, and travel for miles. Then, thinking I had shaken it off, I would alight and proceed ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome
... feet, strode to the further corner of the room and sat down at as great a distance from Vandeman as its dimensions would permit. He turned his face to the small window there, and through all that Vandeman said, kept up a steady, maddening tattoo with his fingernails ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... there came shouts from this or that direction or from every direction at once. Applause was intermingled with hissing, violent discussions were in progress between individual members of the audience, sticks were brandished threateningly, others beat a tattoo on the floor, and the interrupters were greeted with yells of 'Put him out!' or 'Let ...
— The Crowd • Gustave le Bon
... May 15th.—After we had gone to bed last night,—we in the tent, the Doctor and Pilgrim under the fly, which serves as a porch roof,—the heavenly floodgates lifted; the rain, coming in sheets, beat a fierce tattoo on the tightly-stretched canvas, and visions of a sudden rise in the fickle river were uppermost in our dreams. Everything about us was sopping at daybreak; but the sun rose clear and warm from a bed of eastern clouds, ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... above the whistling wind, I heard the welcome rain,— A fusillade upon the roof, A tattoo on the pane: The keyhole piped; the chimney-top A warlike trumpet blew; Yet, mingling with these sounds of strife, A softer ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... intimate relations with primitive man, in Oceania and elsewhere, have imbued me with a deplorable taste for tattoo-work; and I had wished to carry away on my own person, as a curiosity, an ornament, a specimen of the work of the Japanese tattooers, who have a delicacy of finish which ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... many-towered; and all about it the tents of the Christian hosts, and before it in the blue waters of the bay ships riding at anchor, more numerous than the sea-birds that haunt Monte Gibello or swim sentinel about its base. Trumpets from the shore answered to their trumpets; they heard a wild tattoo of drums within the walls. On even keels in the motionless tide the ships took up their moorings; and King Richard, throwing the end of his cloak over his shoulder, jumped off the gunwale of Trenchemer, and waded breast-deep to shore. He ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... by the suddenness of the meeting, Meldrum gave ground with a muttered oath. The young cattleman nodded to the trio and kept on his way. None of the others knew that his heart was hammering a tattoo against his ribs or that queer little chills chased ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... of which they make much account. They do not eat pork, and believe many foolish notions that tend toward superstition. These are a richer people, because they are merchants, and, with their slaves, cultivate the land. There are other natives who tattoo themselves, and wear long hair, as the Chinese do. They are a poorer and fiercer race. All carry weapons, such as daggers and lances, and possess some artillery. No reliance can ever be placed on either of these races. They all ...
— The Philippine Islands 1493-1898, Vol. 4 of 55 - 1576-1582 • Edited by E. H. Blair and J. A. Robertson
... what this irritability meant, and we sat in silence gazing into the glowing ashes. His fingers beat a nervous tattoo against the chair and presently, with some mumbled words, he rose and moved towards the door. Now I knew the fight was on, the fight with the Demon, drink, that was drawing him away from me. I followed him into ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... a cursed captain, named M. Minutoli, who, when on guard, always shut the gate he had charge of an hour before the usual time. I was returning home with my two companions, and had got within half a league of the city, when I heard them beat the tattoo; I redouble my pace, I run with my utmost speed, I approach the bridge, see the soldiers already at their posts, I call out to them in a suffocated voice—it is too late; I am twenty paces from the guard, the first bridge is already drawn up, and I tremble to see those terrible horns ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... to their parents with a polite recommendation that they should be taught some other trade. Giustino was seldom punished. On the contrary, the Director was so enamoured of his progress and blue eyes that he entered him as a fox long before the regular three years' course was up, and offered to tattoo the symbol of proficiency, a cross, on the back ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... want me to tell you about it? It belongs to the man that takes care of our furnace; he's got a peach of a tattoo mark on his arm. My mother told me I had to wear a sweater so I grabbed that as I went through the back hall. I always go out through the kitchen, do you ...
— Pee-wee Harris on the Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... allow, a shower of blows descended on his back, which brought him on his knees, when, ordering him to pick himself up and follow, on pain of a further dose of the colt, Sam Coulson passed on. The sharp tattoo of a drum beaten rapidly sounded at the same time through the ship; but what it signified Paul in his ignorance could not tell, nor was there any one near him to ask. Bewildered and unable to see in the darkness, he tried in vain to gain the hatchway. He groped his way aft as fast as he could, ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... soldiers. Others hovered above the fight, their men ever and again firing shots down at some chance exposure below. The firing came in paroxysms; now there would be a watchful lull and now a rapid tattoo of shots, rising to a roar. Once or twice flying machines, as they circled warily, came right overhead, and for a time Bert gave himself body ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... for "breakfast;" the longer ceremony of "guard-mounting;" the "Old English Roast-Beef," to announce the dinner-hour; the sweet, plaintive strains of "Lochaber no more," followed most incongruously by "The Little Cock-Sparrow," at retreat; and, finally, the long, rolling "tattoo," late in the evening—made pleasant divisions of our time, which, by the aid of books, music, and drawing, in addition to household occupations, seemed to fly more swiftly than ever before. It was on Sunday that I most missed my Eastern home. I had planned ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... watched the strange duel in the heavens. The thrill of that occasion would never be forgotten by any one of the three scouts. And all the while the guns over beyond the low-lying hills were beating a terrible tattoo that was like the music of the orchestra when a play is being performed. That tragedy was there above them, the stage being the limitless ...
— The Boy Scouts on Belgian Battlefields • Lieut. Howard Payson
... of Bottazzi and Madame Bottazzi. Galeotti then raised the drum in his hand, high above his head and against the curtain, and requested 'John' to beat it. 'John' pushed a hand against the drum and beat a muffled tattoo. All this was utterly out of the psychic's reach. The strife over the drum would seem to argue a complete and powerful figure behind ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... his eyes he had met that person face to face. And a presentiment that he should meet his neighbor under the wistaria arbor grew stronger and stronger, until, as he turned into the broad, southeastern entrance to the Park, his heart began beating an uneasy, expectant tattoo under his starched ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... of the Welcome Hotel has invented an ingenious system of calling sleepy guests. The other night a man left instructions that he wished to be called early. Next morning he was disturbed by a loud tattoo upon the door. "Well?" he demanded sharply. "I've got a message for you, sir." Yawning until he strained his face, the guest jumped out of bed and unlocked the door. The bellboy handed him an envelope ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... The "Lora Tattoo," or the Time of Tattooing, will be long remembered. An enthusiastic sitter celebrated the event in verse. Several lines were repeated to us by Hardy, some of which, in a sort of colloquial chant he translated ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... air, the swift hoofs beat their tattoo along the road, keeping time to the pulsing of two hearts that are moved with the same eager desire—to conquer space, to devour the distance, to attain ...
— The Blue Flower, and Others • Henry van Dyke
... sleek, glib fellow who had interviewed Kirkwood in the afternoon. His flabby cheeks were ashen and trembling, and upon the back of his chair the fat white fingers were drumming incessantly an inaudible tattoo ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... I had a moment of consolation, because I met with something which seemed to me ideally perfect. It was a poor drummer beating the tattoo in the streets of Paris. I walked behind him in returning to the school on the evening of a holiday. His drum gave out the tattoo in such a way that, at that moment at least, however peevish I were, I could find ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... a perfect tattoo in joy and was quickly answered. Then the thud, thud began again, but this time the pace ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... His ears caught the music of that sighing rustle through the audience which bespeaks a profound impression. He could scarcely keep the fingers of his hands, covering his bowed face in a devotional posture as they were, from drumming a jubilant tattoo. His pulses did this in every vein, throbbing with excited exultation. The insistent whim seized him, as he still bent thus before his people, to whisper to his own ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... the knocker and knocked sharply. There was no response, and he repeated the summons, but again without effect. Thereupon, with a muttered exclamation, he grasped the knocker a third time and executed a veritable tattoo upon the door. When this had proceeded for about ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... tattoo his arms, or the idea was original with him, cannot be said; probably the tattooing he had seen on one of the bandits that he ran after had suggested a similar adornment for himself. Vidal imitated him, and for a time the pair gave themselves ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... arriving from England bringing General William Howe, General Henry Clinton, and General John Burgoyne, with several thousand troops to carry on the war. Every morning Miss Newville heard the drums beating the reveille and in the evening the tattoo. Many officers called at the hospitable home of Honorable Theodore Newville to enjoy the society of his charming daughter, who received them with ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... passed over hill-side, through wood-path, and across meadow-land, and drawn near the domains of Felix Clerron, Esq. Light of heart perhaps I scarcely ought to say. Certainly, that enterprising organ had never before beat so furious a tattoo in Ivy's breast, as when she stood, hat in hand, on the steps of the somewhat stately dwelling. To do her justice, she had intended to do the penance of wearing her hat when she should have reached her destination; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... last of all, The Clown, making mirth for all the town, With his lips curved ever upward and his eyebrows ever down, And his chief attention paid to the little mule that played A tattoo on the dashboard with ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... that caught her by the skirts and drew her back, that set the branches tossing and swept the dead leaves racing about her ankles. And at the same instant from just above her head there beat upon the air a violent, joyous tattoo—a sound that was neither of the sea nor of the woods, a creaking, swiftly repeated sound, like the ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... read the paragraph he glanced quickly at Archie, whose fork was beating a queer tattoo ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... a tattoo on the side of the boat and wriggled and whined in his anxiety to reach ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... above the highest peaks of the Costejo mountain range. The poplars in front of the house flung slim black shadows across the low adobe buildings and splashed the tip of their shade in the dust-cloud that filled with haze the corral a hundred yards away. Sing Pete stepped from the door and beat a tattoo on the iron triangle suspended by a piece of wire from the lowest branch of a mesquit tree at the corner of the house, announcing by the metallic clamor that the work of the day was finished and supper was ready and waiting. Parker ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... for several minutes Mary played a tattoo on her machine. Then she keyed down quietly and, setting her transmitter at its maximum, she turned ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... a perpetual tattoo to no purpose. The talking and the interruptions from all quarters go on with the utmost license. Everyone esteems himself as good as his neighbor, and puts in his oar, apparently as often for love of riot and confusion as ...
— The Sequel of Appomattox - A Chronicle of the Reunion of the States, Volume 32 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Walter Lynwood Fleming
... Roll — N. roll &c v.; drumming &c v.; berloque^, bombination^, rumbling; tattoo, drumroll; dingdong; tantara^; rataplan^; whirr; ratatat, ratatat-tat; rubadub; pitapat; quaver, clutter, charivari^, racket; cuckoo; repetition &c 104; peal of bells, devil's tattoo; reverberation &c 408. [sound of railroad train rolling on rails] clickety-clack. hum, purr. [animals ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... He raised his head, swallowed a piece of the hot cake and lay down again. The morsel was still in his throat when consciousness left and a deep sleep overwhelmed him. His wife immediately undressed him and put on him the garments of the kalandar. The servant shaved his head and made some tattoo marks on his body. When the night set in the lady called her servant and said, "Hyacinth, be kind enough to take the superintendent on thy back, and carry him to the convent instead of that kalandar, and if he wishes to return to the ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... and said nothing. The painter, who had taken his place by her side, felt decidedly chilly and embarrassed beside his extraordinary neighbor, who amused herself "so entirely inside." Suddenly he began to beat a tattoo with his knife against his glass, drowning the uproar of the party, and rose to ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... for Rondeau's jaw with his right, and when the woods-boss quickly covered, ripped a sizzling left into the latter's midriff. Rondeau grunted and dropped his guard, with the result that Bryce's great fists played a devil's tattoo on his countenance before he could ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... another long interval, during which the secretary said some very, very beautiful things about the charm of Montgomery life. However, it was clear to me that my companion was not interested. After he had looked at his watch several times, and drummed a long tattoo upon the ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... the very finest sea-cloth, and well cut. The buttons on his scarlet waistcoat were new George guineas; and the buttons on his coat were of silver, very beautifully chased. His shoes had big silver buckles on them, and there was a silver buckle to the flap of his grey slouch hat. The tattoo marks on his left hand were covered over by broad silver rings, of the sort the Spanish onion-boys used to sell in Dartmouth, after the end of the war. He looked extremely handsome in his fine clothes. I wondered how I could ever have ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... which they chiefly fail is in working their wells, for which they lack patience. Their women, whom they do not confine, will, it is said, do more field-work than the men; indeed, one often finds women at work in the crops when the men are lying down. Like the women of low Hindu castes they tattoo their bodies, a practice disapproved by Musalmans in general. Abul Fazl writes that the Meos were in his time famous runners, and one thousand of them were employed by Akbar as ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... the house and a leaden tattoo began on the door. "Other window!" whispered O'Neill. The foreman got there before him and, shoving his Colt out first to clear the way, yelled with rage and pain as a pole hit his wrist and knocked ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... puzzled him; her heat, feeling, not only astonished but worried him a little. She was standing there now beating a tattoo on the window pane. He wondered what she was thinking about. The experience as to Ann revealed Katie to him as having thought about things he would not have dreamed she was thinking about. What in the world did she mean by saying she'd like to be a deserter ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... away ten year ago and left Joab to run the store (and a proper mess he made of things!) I found a feller down in the South End of Boston and he fixed me up with this tattoo work for twenty-five dollars. Course, I didn't dare show it none here—kep' my sleeves down an' my throat-latch buttoned all winds and weathers. ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... does the man also scratch his though he takes much more pains over his hair, combing and smoothing it in order to divide it well in front and display the tattoo which distinguishes the parting. ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... which had been lazily falling, suddenly ceased. Tom looked out in surprise. A moment later there came a sound as if some giant fingers were beating a tattoo on the roof of ...
— Tom Swift in the Caves of Ice • Victor Appleton
... listeners as well. We are too impatient to listen. Instead of being attentive and eager to drink in the story or the information, we have not enough respect for the talker to keep quiet. We look about impatiently, perhaps snap our watch, play a tattoo with our fingers on a chair or a table, hitch about as if we were bored and were anxious to get away, and interrupt the speaker before he reaches his conclusion. In fact, we are such an impatient people that we have no time for anything excepting to push ahead, to elbow ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... muffled drum's sad roll has beat The soldier's last tattoo; No more on Life's parade shall meet That brave and fallen few. On Fame's eternal camping-ground Their silent tents are spread, And Glory guards, with solemn round, The bivouac ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... would, Gerard flew right at him, with a savage, exulting cry, and struck at him with all his heart, and soul and strength. The oak staff came down on Ghysbrecht's face with a frightful crash, and laid him under his mule's tail beating the devil's tattoo with his heels, his face streaming, and his ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... when the drums were beating their first tattoo and reached Webo three hours before midnight. When I stepped through the gate, I could see the sentries asleep in their guard-rooms. They snored so that it sounded like thunder. The camp sentinels were pacing their beats, and I went in ...
— The Chinese Fairy Book • Various
... until tears of weakness dribbled down his face and splashed on to the pavement. As for his head, it throbbed as if a giant hammer were within it, and some demon were rattling the interior of his skull and were dancing a tattoo upon ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... agreed to tattoo each other. One marked the breast and back of the other, his arms and legs, and even his face. And when he had finished, he took soot off the bottom of a cooking-pot and rubbed it into all the marks; and ...
— Philippine Folk Tales • Mabel Cook Cole
... had been a cue, the sounds again burst forth—no longer muffled nor faint. They roared; they seemed to pelt through air and drop upon us; they beat about our ears with thunderous tattoo like covered caverns drummed upon by Titans with trunks of ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt
... Suez with Armstrong and Stevenson till tattoo at 9:30 finished the day, and convinced Miles and his friends that the sooner they bade adieu to that place the ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... exceptions; the higher the family, the better the man—better in sense, better in manners, and usually taller and stronger in body. A stranger advances blindfold. He scrapes acquaintance as he can. Save the tattoo in the Marquesas, nothing indicates the difference of rank; and yet almost invariably we found, after we had made them, that our friends were persons of station. I have said 'usually taller and stronger.' ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... fast retreating, boys, The last tattoo is beating, boys, So let every man Finish his can, And drink to our ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... a tattoo on the corrugated iron roof. It dripped into a dozen pools on the soaking floor, it fell in drops which hissed on to the top of the stove. There was no musical instrument of any kind. The tea-tray was cleared away and laid in a corner. The Major, white-haired, lean-faced, ...
— Our Casualty And Other Stories - 1918 • James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham
... she said, pleasantly enough; and walked back to the desk. She eyed the clerk, a half-smile on her lips, one arm, in its neat tailored sleeve, resting on the marble, while her right forefinger, trimly gloved, tapped an imperative little tattoo. (Perhaps you think that last descriptive sentence is as unnecessary as it is garbled. But don't you get a little picture of her—trim, taut, tailored, ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... politics, sir, to my own satisfaction; and I make shift to answer people according to their idols. I vow, I am so weary of the words 'honour and honesty' that they beat a tattoo on ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... same author states that "a sometime headman of Senendan had two square tattoo marks on his back. This was because he ran away in a fight, and showed his back to the enemy." This explanation seems to us ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... me as though it were one of those crimes of passion which are so frequent in this country," he said. "Mordon was a Frenchman and I have been able to identify him by tattoo marks on his arm, as a man who has been in the hands of the ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace
... satin slipper stopped its regular tattoo on the rugged floor. She lifted her face to his and looked ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... bedlam of shots: the planes of the 91st Squadron were diving from the heights. They came on a steep slant that seemed marking them for crashing death against the huge cylinder flashing past. And their stabbing needles of machine-gun fire made a drumming tattoo, till the planes, with the swiftness of hawks, swept aside, formed to groups, tore on down toward the ground and then curved in great circles of speed to climb back ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... etc., gun squad drills, dinner, and in fine weather and good condition of the ground in afternoon often, field drill of which battery, with guns, caissons, teams, cannoneers, drivers and all stable call, supper, camp amusements of all kinds, tattoo and finally taps. There were two buglers in the company, Charles M. Donoho was at the company headquarters. He acted as messenger also. The other, Rufus Menander Rosser was in the same mess as the writer. One of his duties was to blow the Reveille call ...
— A History of Lumsden's Battery, C.S.A. • George Little
... dark and starless night. Tattoo-beat had long been heard, and Hay's Brigade, weary after a long day's march, rested beneath the dewy boughs of gigantic oaks in a dense forest near the placid Rappahannock. No sound broke the stillness of the night. The troops were lying ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... New Zealanders surpassed all other people in the art of tattooing, to which their chiefs gave especial attention. Mete Kingi, as our picture shows, was no exception. Tattooing on the face they termed moko. The men tattoo their faces, hips, and thighs; the women their upper lips; for this purpose charcoal made from kauri gum is chiefly used. It has the blue color when pricked into the skin, growing lighter in shade in the course of years. The subject ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 433, April 19, 1884 • Various
... baits.[10] Before the lines were properly out, in they had to come again. Flop-flop went the fish on the bottom-boards as we jerked them carelessly off the hooks. Every moment or two one of them would dance up and flip its tail wildly; beat on the bottom-boards a tattoo which spattered us with scales; then sink back among the glistening mass that was fast losing its beauty of colour, its opalescent pinks and steely blues, even ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... pulled to their haunches with a vociferous shout. The cab swerved and creaked, and the horses' hoofs beat an alarming tattoo on the cobblestones. ...
— Bart Stirling's Road to Success - Or; The Young Express Agent • Allen Chapman
... are tattooed in the most grotesque patterns. When you look at them closely the invention displayed is truly remarkable; but at a distance they give a dingy, dusky appearance to the men, as if they were daubed with an inky sponge. Nature having denied them beards, they tattoo curly locks along their faces, always bordered by a vandyke fringe, which must task their utmost ingenuity. Tanee, who has followed us with some of his warriors, is the very exquisite of a Kenowit. He is made like a Hercules, and is proud of showing his strength and agility. He piques ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... and, as is always the case, visitors began to arrive. Several ladies and officers dropped in during the evening; they sat on the piazza enjoying the serenade until the shrill piping of the fifes and rattle of the drums sounding tattoo sent the musicians off to bed and numerous pairs of white trousers scurrying towards the cadet barracks. They watched the simultaneous "dousing of the glim" in the long facade as the clock struck ten and the three ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... in tents, and are regarded with contempt even by the peasantry. Their women tell fortunes, tattoo, {189} and sell small-wares; the men work in iron (quincaillerie). They are all adroit thieves, and noted as such. The men may sometimes be seen going around the country with monkeys; in fact, they appear to be in all respects the same people as ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... be strong like you, Brick," said Goosey. "Some of us kids have been talking about it and one fellow says he's noticed that strong men like sailors and railroad men always have tattoo marks like you got. A brakeman told him that's what made him strong. Some of us want you to ...
— The Boy Scout Treasure Hunters - The Lost Treasure of Buffalo Hollow • Charles Henry Lerrigo
... impels the criminal to visit the scene of his crime, Alfred began a pilgrimage to the little red school-house. Walking along the old pike the sound of a horse's hoofs beating a tattoo on the road reached his ears. He recognized in the rider, ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... agreements at all hours of the day and night, improvising as his office the back room of a liquor saloon or the cigar counter of a barber shop; and, in default of any other writing material, he was quite prepared to tattoo a brief though binding agreement with gunpowder on the skin of the ...
— Elkan Lubliner, American • Montague Glass
... the Ibo. The Akus [Footnote: This is a nickname from the national salutation, 'Aku, ku, ku?' ('How d'ye do?')] or Egbas of Yoruba, the region behind Lagos, the Eyeos of the old writers, so called from their chief town, 'Oyo,' are known by their long necklaces of tattoo. They are termed the Jews of Western Africa; they are perfect in their combination, and they poison with a remarkable readiness. The system of Egba 'clanship' is a favourite, sometimes an engrossing, topic for invective with ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... moment Zora sprang forward and seized the burning liquid in both hands. A dozen hands clapped a devil's tattoo. A score of voices yelled and laughed. The shriek of the music was drowned beneath the thunder of stamping feet. Men reeled to singing women's arms, but above the roar rose the song of the voice of Zora—she glided to the middle of the room, standing tip-toed ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... feels, he whirred yet more loudly, until, unwittingly, he found himself drumming, and tickled with the discovery of his new power, thumped the air again and again till he filled the near woods with the loud tattoo of the fully grown cock-partridge. His brother and sister heard and looked on with admiration and surprise; so did his mother, but from that time she began to be a little ...
— Lobo, Rag and Vixen - Being The Personal Histories Of Lobo, Redruff, Raggylug & Vixen • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... glass, received no attention, and commenced to beat a tattoo. The window was snatched open, and the fat clerk, very red, thrust his ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... flattened ears; narrow and dome-shaped palate; irregularly placed teeth; prominent parietal bones; two symmetrical depressions on the occiput; congenital flat-footedness; and a sullen facial expression. His arms were covered with tattoo marks. Sense of pain somewhat diminished. Sympathetic reactions could not be elicited. Wassermann reaction with ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck
... gentleman was inveighing at Hood upon America's lack of mirth; the American people had utterly lost their capacity for laughter, the old man averred. Deering's fork beat a lively tattoo on his plate as he attacked ...
— The Madness of May • Meredith Nicholson
... 1/2 hour later, except retreat, tattoo, call to quarters and taps. In case an entertainment is given on the post, taps usually follow its close by a ...
— Military Instructors Manual • James P. Cole and Oliver Schoonmaker
... but a flimsy barricade against a mob, especially if that mob be led by five-and-twenty stout-bodied seaman. We had shut it merely to gain time, and when the cudgels outside began to play tattoo upon its upper panels I looked for no more than a minute's respite ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... men finished their meal and drifted back to their various employments. The hammers began again their merry tattoo; and the wrangling voices of dice-throwers replaced the shouts of the bathers. Except for these, however, the place was still. The sun shone hotly, and the trees appeared to nap ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... frowned thoughtfully and postponed any interview he may have desired with No-luck Drennen. He paid for a room at Joe's for a week in advance, went into solitary session, smoking his blackened pipe thoughtfully, his powerful fingers beating a long tattoo upon the sill of the window through which his eyes could find Drennen's dugout. With full square beard, iron grey hair, massive countenance, there was something leonine about Marshall Sothern. It appeared reasonable that if he were going into the battle against Madden and Hasbrook, then Madden ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory
... fellows soon get very mirthful on the ginger-wine; keeping up a continual buzz, like a colony of bees, sadly itching to be at something—a wish that is not to be realized at once, for little Miss Newsoince is going to do that eternal tattoo, the "Rataplan:"—yes, there she is, in Tom's felt-hat and polonaise, as "La Vivandiere," thumping upon an empty band-box with two knitting-pins, singing, as some of the mammas say, very prettily; but as the boys, who have heard it many times before, ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner
... immediate effect of lowering his spirits. It might well have been the abode of monsters or demons in a child's wonder tale, creatures that only dared to come out under cover of darkness. He groped for the bell-handle, or knocker, and finding neither, he raised his stick and beat a loud tattoo on the door. The sound echoed away in an empty space on the other side and the wind moaned past him between the pillars as if startled at his audacity. But there was no sound of approaching footsteps and no one ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... Jessie, and Lucile's hand went out instinctively to silence the interruption. "Sh-h!" she warned, but the Frenchman seemed not to have heard and continued his narrative, while his hand beat a nervous tattoo on the arm of ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... collection, at which Martin worked heart and soul, and introduced Arthur to Howlett the bird-fancier, and instructed him in the rudiments of the art of stuffing. In token of his gratitude, Arthur allowed Martin to tattoo a small anchor on one of his wrists; which decoration, however, he carefully concealed from Tom. Before the end of the half-year he had trained into a bold climber and good runner, and, as Martin had foretold, knew twice as much about trees, birds, flowers, and many other things, as our good-hearted ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... away—and beside him sat a heavy built, clean-shaven man of middle age. That would be Cloran, of course—the man who was to have been lured to his death. And Danglar was nervous and uneasy, she could see. His fingers were drumming a tattoo on the table; his eyes were roving furtively about the room; and he did not seem to be paying any but the most distrait attention to his companion, who ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... something to happen. The Duke, the oak, and I were silence personified. A dead branch would crack, or the trunks of smaller and ignorant pines would knock together, and the Duke would look around the corner and say "Chut!" in a low voice, thinking I was playing a tattoo on the tree. ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... startled than the others. Then the glass prisms in the chandelier over our heads clinked together, as if they had been swept by a finger. More of the flowers came. We were pelted with them. And into the quiet that followed there came a light, fine but steady tattoo on the table in our midst. Then at last silence, and the medium in deep trance, and Mrs. Dane rapping on ...
— Sight Unseen • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... "Suddenly the tattoo sounded,—not loud and shrill, as on ordinary occasions, but in a subdued and cautious manner, as if fearful of being heard by the British, whose white tents might be seen in the distance. Obedient to the signal, the greater ...
— The Old Bell Of Independence; Or, Philadelphia In 1776 • Henry C. Watson
... Imperial Government is constantly rousing patriotic sentiment. Every day the emperor delights to revive memories of 1813. Yesterday evening a military tattoo went through the streets of Berlin, speeches were delivered in which the present situation was compared to that of a hundred years ago.... It was of course to be expected that national patriotism would be worked up just when fresh sacrifices are being required, but to compare ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... rocks on her hams. A torrent of song strains at her throat, gurgles, rushes, gouges her blocked pipes. Her feet beat a wild tattoo— head flung back and pelvis lifting to the white body of the sun. Mates now, these two— goddess and ...
— Sun-Up and Other Poems • Lola Ridge
... rafters, and the raised hearth glowed. Here were the men drinking coffee infused with rose water, pepper, or mint, smoking tobacco and hasheesh. And here were the dancing women—"The Pearl," "Lips of Pomegranate," "The Star"—their foreheads bearing the tattoo marks of their tribes, their cheeks and chins smeared with saffron, their fingernails tinted with henna, their bodies moving convulsively under ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... moustache which adorns their Asiatic progenitors. The labrets of the men are offset by the long pendant earrings of the women, which are made from H.B. Co. beads and shells brought by Alaska Indians from the Pacific, It is only the women who here tattoo their faces, the three long stripes extending from lower lip to the chin. The men crop their hair in the style of the tonsure of the monk. Neither man nor woman provides any head covering except the hood of the artikki or smock, which ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... the truth. Wait till you see me thump the Devil's tattoo with my old flail on your thrashin'-floor! But you look as cheery as an Easter-mornin' sun; you've not much for to complain ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... the variety of blank verse in this regard, and no other metrist makes so splendid a use of its freedom. He never forgets the pattern; yet he never stoops to teach it by the repetition of a monotonous tattoo. Hence there are, perhaps, fewer one-line quotations to be found in the works of Milton than in the works of any other master of blank verse. De Quincey speaks of the "slow planetary wheelings" of Milton's verse, and the metaphor is a happy one; the verse revolves ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... rather sleepy-headed in the morning and it is a part of the cook's job to get them up. The next I knew, Herman had a tin pan on which he was beating a vigorous tattoo, all the time hollering, "We haf cackle-berries und antelope steak for breakfast." The baby was startled by the noise, so I attended to him and then dressed myself for breakfast. I went down to the little spring to wash my face. The morning ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... interparolad'i, -o; konversacio. tallow : sebo. talon : ungego. tame : dresi; malsovagxa. tan : tan'i, -ilo. tankard : pokalo. tap : krano; frapeti. tape : katunrubando. tar : gudr'o, -umi. tart : torto; acida. task : tasko. taste : gust'o, -umi. tattoo : tatui. tax : imposto. tea : teo. teach : instrui, lernigi. tear : sxiri. tear : larmo. tease : inciteti. tedious : teda, enuiga. tell : rakonti, diri. temper : humoro, karaktero. temperate : sobra, modera. temperature ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer
... that he wished to see her, she thought her heart could beat no faster, but his words made that small organ tattoo against her sides like the flutter of a bird's wing in fright. She could do something for him! Oh, what joy! ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... eyebrows and eyelids are dyed black while the children are very young, and they frequently paint themselves with dark-blue streaks of a finger's breadth over the eyebrows, and with spots on the forehead. The adult women tattoo their breasts, foreheads, noses, or temples with red, white, or yellow colours, according as they are particularly attached to one or the other deity. Many wear amulets or miniatures hung round their necks, so that I at first thought they were Catholics, and felt gratified at the brilliant successes ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... Rachel Lake as she looked out on her shadowy garden, and tapped a little feverish tattoo with her finger on the window pane; and she meditated a great while, trying to bring back distinctly her recollection of Lady Constance, and also vaguely conjecturing who had arranged the marriage, and how it had ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... lost Home Rule by allowing themselves to be stampeded. Their English friends, the enemy, playing upon their prejudices, they became drunk with hate, and then their shillalahs resounded a tattoo upon the head of their leader. Nations and people who turn upon their best friends ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... Louder sounds suddenly broke this approach to silence; they came from the camp of dragoons, were taken up further to the right by the camp of the Hanoverians, and further on still by the body of infantry. It was tattoo. Feeling no desire to sleep, she listened yet longer, looked at Charles's Wain swinging over the church tower, and the moon ascending higher and higher over the right-hand streets of tents, where, instead of parade and bustle, there was nothing going ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... centuries—supply us with a portrait which does not appear exaggerated. I know nothing in this sense more terrible than Raoul de Cambrai, and the hero of this old poem would pass for a type of a half-civilized savage. This Raoul was a kind of Sioux or other redskin, who only wanted tattoo and feathers in his hair to be complete. Even a redskin is a believer, or superstitious to some extent, while Raoul defied the Deity himself. The savage respects his mother, as a rule; but Raoul laughed at his mother, who cursed him. Behold him as he invaded the Vermandois, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... underlip, she entered her room, flung herself into a chair, and beat a tattoo with her foot. The door opened softly, and Burden stole in. She was very pale, there were dark marks under her eyes, and she trembled so violently that the brushes rattled together as she took them from ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... handkerchief. As she did so her eyes fell upon a tattoo-mark, an anchor inside a true-lover's knot. It was an ordinary enough tattoo-mark, but the sight of it struck at Mollie for she had seen it before. The odd impression of last night, which she had forgotten in the various exigences of the situation, ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton
... is, Mrs. John Powers, would be ensconced at the home of Mrs. Fogel, his mother. Mollie Bent was there, and girl like, was delighted over the romance being enacted under that roof. The heart of the Indian maid was beating a happy tattoo under ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... sentenced to receive military punishment, one of the drummers refused to inflict it, saying it was not his duty. "Not your duty, Sirrah!" said the adjutant, "what do you mean?" "I know very well," replied Tattoo, "that it is not my duty; I was present at the court martial, and heard the colonel say he was to receive corporal punishment. I am no corporal, but ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... sunset the music called out the regiment for dress parade, where various maneuvers were gone through and orders were read. After the parade, when the regiment was again in its quarters, the arms were placed in the arm-racks, the horses attended to, a fifth roll-call endured, and tattoo sounded. Then the lights were extinguished and all were expected to be quiet for ...
— Old Fort Snelling - 1819-1858 • Marcus L. Hansen
... caress. He knew old "eleven," every foot of her, every tube, bolt, and strap. As they cleared the yards, he threw her wider and wider open until she was lunging and lurching madly. The cinders beat a tattoo upon the cab, and Jim Weeks crowded up into the corner. The fireman, a strapping young fellow, threw in great shovels of coal with the regularity of a machine, pausing only to wipe his forehead with the back of his hand as the heat grew intense. ...
— The Short Line War • Merwin-Webster
... his previous letters on the same. It was a good joke, he thought, to get the boy he was abusing to contribute some needful assistance towards the work; it added a flavor to treachery. But Frank did not so much enjoy the pleasantry. He was wild to be beating the tattoo, not on the said drum, but on the head of the rogue who was writing on the drum, and with his ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge
... rifle sent its death-challenge once more to John Graham and his men. What followed struck a smile from Mary's lips, and a moaning sob rose from her breast as she watched the man she loved rise up before the open window to face the winged death that was again beating a tattoo against the log walls of ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... maintenance, decoration, and furnishing; of the assignment of rooms, the supply of food, the heating, lights, silver, and livery. He commanded the detachments of the Imperial Guard on duty in the Imperial palaces. He gave orders to beat the reveill and the tattoo, to open and shut the palace gates. When the Emperor was with the army, or travelling, he had to find him quarters. In 1805 the Grand Marshal's budget amounted to 2,338,167 francs. In 1806 it reached the ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... said the night-watchman, firmly. "It 'as to be a gift, as you can well see. A man 'as to know wot 'e is going to tattoo an' 'ow to do it; there's no rubbing out or altering. It's a gift, an' it can't be learnt. I knew a man once as used to tattoo a cabin-boy all over every v'y'gc trying to learn. 'E was a slow, painstaking sort o' man, and the langwidge those boys ...
— Light Freights • W. W. Jacobs
... finally succeeded in doing. Booted for the purpose, I laid myself back, and then commenced beating a tattoo ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... kitchen without another glance at her aunt or the delighted Mrs. Tony and dashed up the stairs to her own little room which looked out over the whole of Ramble Valley. It was warm with the March sunshine and the leafless boughs of the creeper that covered the end of the house were tapping a gay tattoo on the window panes to the ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1904 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... costume is to be seen, indeed, among them. Therefore, here tattooing asserts its sway. The more it has been studied in late years the more valuable has been the information in deciding the kinship relations of tribes. Unfortunately, in the Philippines the greater part of the early tattoo designs have been lost and the art itself is also nearly eliminated. But since the journey of Carl Semper it has been known that not only Malays but also Negritos tattoo; indeed, this admirable explorer has ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... and a bother, forsooth, was made By that man-tormentor, Gustavus, the Swede, Whose camp was a church, where prayers were said At morning reveille and evening tattoo; And, whenever it chanced that we frisky grew, A sermon himself from the saddle ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... long a time had passed that it did not much matter. Grammont was pleased with his citation. It seemed to make it all right for him, somehow. It seemed to give him standing among his fellow patients. The hideous tattoo marks on his arms and legs, chest and back, which proclaimed him an apache, which showed him such every time his wound was dressed, were about to be overlaid with a decoration for bravery upon the field of battle. But still ...
— The Backwash of War - The Human Wreckage of the Battlefield as Witnessed by an - American Hospital Nurse • Ellen N. La Motte
... filled her pail and was returning in the track selected by the buffalo. Too terrified to move, she watched, with white face and parted lips, the maddened animal sweep toward her, head down and tail up, its hoofs beating a thunderous tattoo on the plain. ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... permission? Bah! after all, he will not eat me. What is to be will be. I will go to find his friend a bald man—another trump, this one. Thunder! when M. Murphy came in, I said, 'My fate will be decided.' I felt my throat dry—my heart beat a tattoo. I expected to be scolded soundly. The worthy man received me as as if he had left me the evening previous. He told me that M. Rudolph, far from being angry, wished to see me at once. In short, he took ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... Churchill said, at the same time kicking a tattoo on the ribs of the snoring Antonsen. "You go back to White Horse. We'll go ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... listened. Colonel Jacques sat and smiled; but he is a modest man, and his fingers were beating a nervous tattoo on the table. The young officer stood and read, glancing up now and then to smile at his chief's embarrassment. The wind howled outside, setting the sacks at the ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... crowd, lay on the deck farther aft. One was on top of the other, his fingers clutching the gullet of his helpless opponent. The agony of the man underneath found expression only in the drumming heels that beat a tattoo on the floor. The spasmodic feet were shod in Oxford tans of an ultra-fashionable cut. No doubt the owner of the smart footwear had been pulled down as he was escaping to ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... cup to my lips;—her hand, holding a spoon, trembled so that the spoon beat a tattoo on her saucer. She was watching me in breathless suspense; and all at once I turned ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... came out of the darkness and at that instant I made a discovery. Leith was not alone. Keeping time with the clatter of the shoes was a softer tattoo that told me that a barefooted runner was racing beside the man we ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... beat a constant tattoo on the roof, and this, mingling with the drowsy purr of the cat, who was now marching to and fro with tail erect in front of Gethryn, exercised a soothing influence, and presently a snore so shocked the parrot that he felt obliged to relieve his mind by a series ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers
... "I belave we can do bist by oursilves. Me afthernoon's lave ixpires at tattoo, but if, as me shuparior officers, ye'll allow me to be out of camp a bit longer, I think we ...
— Captured by the Navajos • Charles A. Curtis
... be driven forth in disgrace, And Rahero, the laughing and lazy, sit and rule in his place, Here Tamatea came, and beheld the house on the brook; And Rahero was there by the way and covered an oven to cook. {1c} Naked he was to the loins, but the tattoo covered the lack, And the sun and the shadow of palms dappled his muscular back. Swiftly he lifted his head at the fall of the coming feet, And the water sprang in his mouth with a sudden desire of meat; For he marked the basket carried, covered ...
— Ballads • Robert Louis Stevenson
... she was dancing the Romalis, and making the bits of broken crockery rattle as well as if they had been ebony and ivory castanets. That girl was good company, I can tell you! Evening fell, and I heard the drums beating tattoo. ...
— Carmen • Prosper Merimee
... one lacks the music of the agongs,[27] for only bamboo guitars, flutes, and the bolang-bolang are permitted at this time. The last named instrument is made by placing a board on a rice mortar; the women gather around it with their wooden pestles and beat a rythmical[sic] tattoo. This concludes the festival proper, but many guests will remain for two or three days to enjoy ...
— The Wild Tribes of Davao District, Mindanao - The R. F. Cummings Philippine Expedition • Fay-Cooper Cole
... himself in the pine-scented shipyard, amid the tattoo of the mallets; Or he leaned on the rail of the bridge, letting his thoughts flow with the whispering river; He hearkened also to ancient tales, and made them young again with ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... long to describe, the motion is faster than the eye can follow, and the "phut, phut" noise of the exhaust sounds like the tattoo of a drum. Almost every gasoline motor vehicle carries its own electric plant, either a set of batteries or more commonly a little magneto dynamo, which is run by the shaft of the motor. Electricity is used to make ...
— Stories of Inventors - The Adventures Of Inventors And Engineers • Russell Doubleday
... bank of the Alleghany, vigorously waving her hand and hailing the youthful navigator. The forward end of the one by twelve inch board was reluctantly headed for shore, and slowly idled in. As the child reached land, he was grasped by the angry and anxious mother, who beat a merry tattoo on a tender portion his ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... ashamed of your ancestry. An' remember, God loves the Irish—Kwaque! Go fetch 'm two bottle beer fella stop 'm along icey-chestis!—Why, the very mug of you, my lad, sticks out Irish all over it." (Michael's tail beat a tattoo.) "Now don't be blarneyin' me. 'Tis well I'm wise to your insidyous, snugglin', heart-stealin' ways. I'll have ye know my heart's impervious. 'Tis soaked too long this many a day in beer. I stole you to sell you, not to be ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... played a thoughtful tattoo upon his fleshy knuckles with the letter-opener. "Nothing. Aren't ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... in proclaiming to all whom it might concern that it was five minutes past the half-hour 'twixt seven and eight, and there were girls in every group, and many a young fellow in the rigid line of gray and white before them, resentful of the fact that dress parade was wofully late and long, with tattoo and taps only two hours or so away. The season for the regular summer "hops" had not yet begun, for this was away back in the eighties, when many another old West Point fashion still prevailed; but there was to be an informal dance in the dining-room of ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... drawn closer and more securely, day by day, the girdle of civilization. Within its constricting grasp the spirit of savagery, if not crushed, was at least subdued. Tribes naked but for their blankets, unadorned save by the tattoo, found themselves pressed close to other tribes which, already civilized, had relinquished the chase for agricultural pursuits. Primeval men, breathing this quickened atmosphere of modernity, either grew more sophisticated, or perished ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... husband's face, but the captain was forearmed and chose to keep his back towards his better half and to pull on his arctics and overcoat and gather up his little hurricane lamp. The trumpet was sounding first call for tattoo, and though it was no concern of his, for Mr. Sanders, his cheery subaltern, had just gone whistling by on his way to the troop quarters, Cranston preferred to face the falling snow rather than those speaking, luminous, quizzical, questioning, ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... Europeans. Never shaving after a certain age, the men have full beards and moustaches, but the stories of Ainu covered with hair like a bear are quite unjustified by facts. Men and women alike cut their hair level with the shoulders at the sides of the head, but trim it semicircularly behind. The women tattoo their mouths, arms, and sometimes their foreheads, using for colour the smut deposited on a pot hung over a fire of birch bark. Their original dress is a robe spun from the bark of the elm tree. It has long sleeves, reaches nearly to the feet, is folded round ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... ahead, sitting on the edge of the seat and looking as if he expected to be eaten alive, without salt, any minute. You could have told that he was from extremely elsewhere at first glance. He was as different as if he had worn tattoo-marks for trousers. He was a stout party with black-rimmed eyeglasses, side whiskers that you wouldn't have believed even if you had seen them, and slabs of iron-gray hair with a pepper-and-salt traveling ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... in which I had enveloped it; and when George suggested to me carelessly one spring afternoon that I should stop by his house and have a look at his uncle's classical library, I felt my cheeks burn, while my heart beat an excited tattoo against my ribs. The house I knew by sight, a grave, low-browed mansion, with a fringe of purple wistaria draping the long porch; and it was under a pendulous shower of blossoms that we found the General seated with the evening newspaper in his hand and his bandaged foot on a wicker ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... Chris'mas, an' ivry little girl a chain an' locket; an' ivry man thinks he's sure goin' to get th' goold-headed cane he's longed f'r since he come over. But they all fin'lly land on rockin'-horses an' dolls, an' suspindhers that r-run pink flowers into their shirts an' tattoo thim in summer. An' they conceal their grief Chris'mas mornin' an' thry to look pleasant ...
— Mr. Dooley in Peace and in War • Finley Peter Dunne
... "raw"; and my duty, with others, consisted in "licking them into shape". It was drill, drill, from morning till night; and, by early tattoo, I was always glad to crawl into my tent and go to sleep—such sleep as a man can get among scorpions, lizards, and soldier-crabs; for the little islet seemed to have within its boundaries a specimen of every reptile that came ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... bright crimson, green-bronze, maroon, or pure green; and when a camp-fire was lighted in a grove of such trees the evening effect was a thing to remember for a lifetime. The regimental camps were all alive with diversions of different sorts from the time of the halt at the end of a march till tattoo sounded. Each had its trained pet animals, and the soldiers exhausted their skill and patience in teaching these varied tricks. One regiment had a pair of bull-terrier dogs that played a game which never failed to amuse. At a signal one of the dogs would seize a firebrand by the unburnt end ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... play rat-tat-tat and beat the tattoo before the lasses again, lest he should find himself westwards in the Blue Mountains before he ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie
... them stopped abruptly and listened to a strange sound which carried to them eerily in the quiet night with all the mystery of the unaccountable. It was like the beat of a distant drum, a hollow tattoo that came and went ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... out her hand and took his. He was terrifically conscious of the warm smoothness of her fingers playing a soft tattoo on the back of his hand, ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... for the benefit of a small something in long white clothes, that lay face downward under a little blanket of very blue new flannel, and which something Aunt Roxy, when not otherwise engaged, constantly patted with a gentle tattoo, in tune to the steady trot of her knee. All babies knew Miss Roxy's tattoo on their backs, and never thought of taking it in ill part. On the contrary, it had a vital and mesmeric effect of sovereign force against colic, and all other disturbers ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe |
